The Witcher 3 Announced!

[Ickorus]

The following is a direct copy-paste from the thread at The Escapist:

Well it was only a matter of time when we would get info on Witcher 3, and it's finally here. The next game informer has gone out to digital subscribers and is chock full of some amazing info regarding W3.

Source 1: http://www.destructoid.com/the-witcher-3-revealed-complete-with-bearded-geralt-244044.phtml
Source 2: http://gamingeverything.com/39177/witcher-3-confirmed-is-next-gen-featured-in-game-informer/
Source 3: http://www.neogaf.com/forum/showthread.php?t=511690

World supposedly 20% bigger than Skyrim’s
30-40 minutes to cross world on Horseback
New streaming technology (CDRED Engine 3)
Geralt’s Memory is restored
No chapters/acts
Dude is DONE fighting for everyone else
Everything from solving MYSTERIES to slaying monsters
Coming out on “all top-of-the-line” consoles
- The team felt it missed the huge freedom of open-world games like Skyrim
- Proper mounted combat still being tested
- Currently not a definite part of the game
- Horses will be in, though, since they’re important for navigation
- Ships float on the water in true physics interactions
- Team has doubled in size
- No chapters, acts, or any artificial break-points
- Geralt can seamlessly cross from one end of the world to the other thanks to REDengine 3
- No loading screens while traveling in the open world
- Can explore on foot, by horseback, and via boat
- Pursue yor long-lost love, play the game of empires on behalf of the northern kingdoms that still claim independence, and thwart the nefarious Wild Hunt
- Fast travel: instantly revisit any discovered location
- Director Konrad Tomaszkiewicz: “A huge goal is to keep the high quality o four quests, with all the cinematics and impressive events and moments.”
- Point of interest will always be in sight
- Players will be beckoned to explore dank caves, embattled villages, decaying ruins, etc.
- Over 100 hours of hand-scripted quests
- Quests: help villagers, engineer the succession of the Skellige kings, etc.
- Use monster hunting for adventure, incoming, and unique rewards
- There are mini-games based on the area of the world
- Ex: Skellige has knife-throwing
- Gain exclusive rewards from mini-games
- Don’t have to complete mini-games to proceed in the story
- Monsters, bandits, traders, animals, and more will attack anyone they deem hostile
- Enemies don’t scale to the player’s level
- Slaying monsters, fighting hostile humans in the different forms they come in, collecting items, leveling up are in the game
- World 40 times larger than the last game
- Three different aspects to narration
- Lowest level: free-form activities like monster hunting, crafting, individual standalone quests
- Second step: political situation and Nilfgaardian invasion is resolved through the core plotline of the major areas (Skellige, Novigrad, No Man’s Land)
- Each land has its own storyline
- Can abandon the storyline, but will have repercussions later
- Not doing a plotline is a choice the player has
- Main narrative: search for Geralt’s loved ones and conflict with the Wild Hunt
- Multiple branches of narratives that feed into each other
- Don’t have to do anything outside the main storyline to beat the game
- Could have help in a main-line encounter from an ally you gained in the Skellige archipelago if you’ve completed certain quests in certain ways
- Major events in the main storyline are “gates” for the state of the world
- Ex: village threatened by bandits might be abandoned after certain events if the player doesn’t help
- Weather effects are dynamically generated and fully modeled as real volumetric clouds rather than being simply painted on the skybox
- In contrast to the last game, Geralt encounters communities and individuals with monster-related problems that need solving
- There aren’t contract-like assignments this time
- Press the left trigger to turn on Geralt’s witcher senses
- Can glean information from a crime scene upon discovering it
- Within range of a scene of interest, the mechanic conveys clues to the player through the witcher muttering to himself and/or visual depictions of past events that represent Geralt’s reasoning
- Time of day and other conditions determine where monsters appear and their abilities
- Can strike critical areas in combat based on how much you learn about monster anatomy and tactics
- The team is deciding between using a handful of in-combat special moves for particular attacks and a slow-motion quick-time event style
- Monsters you defeat leave otherwise unobtainable alchemical and crafting ingrediants needed for making of unique items, potions, mutagens
- These allow Geralt to gain special powers and upgrades in the new mutation development tree
- These kills serve as the witcher’s primary method of income
- Moving more toward romance and away from shallow sexual encounters
- “We want to treat it maturely like we did in The Witcher 2. We are not bringing sex cards back.”
- Witcher 3 doesn’t have completely different environments based on singular choices due to the open world, but there are similarly impactful decisions
- You’ll be involved with mutually exclusive storylines and situations based on certain momentous choices
- Won’t be on the same level as Witcher 2, however
- Game mechanics based on previous games, but the team is revisiting many details
- Backward difficulty curve being addressed
- Rewroking the flow of combat
- 96 animations for Geralt’s combat moves (last game had 20)
- Game has a “weighting” system for the camera to help keep the biggest threats in frame at all times
- Combat system: three big changes to solve the problem of being locked into long animations
- Every button prss mapped to a single strike
- Each move takes a roughly equivalent time to perforom
- Can always interrupt your current action to immediately dodge or block
- Can block/dodge when out of stamina, but you’ll be staggered
- Team wants to make the combat “more intimate”
- “You don’t run – in the Witcher 2 you were running constantly. You walk, but your attacks are very fast. Your opponents also walk but they have charges and things like that.”
- Geralt’s dodge roll replaced by a pivot move
- It retains its defensive utility without game-breaking mobility
- Attacks faster than in The Witcher 2
- Enemy AI completely rebuilt
- No scripted boss encounters
- One boss: ice giant
- Roughly a dozen types of interactive objects
- Ex: Can irritate a wasp with the telekinetic Aard sign to make a damaging distraction for his foes and disperse the swarm with the fiery Igni sign once the wasp swarm becomes a problem
- Magical signs are retooled
- Each of the five signs has a basic form such as Igni’s new flamethrower effect
- If the player advances down the magic tree as Geralt levels up, can unlock a second form of the sign
- For Igni, would unlock a 360-degree blast that immolates anything close
- Yrdren’s small trap can be changed into a bigger field that slows enemies
- Player retains the use of the basic form
- Other two trees are based on swordsmanship and alchemy
- Swordfighting: can unlock new strikes and boosts such as improved stanima and parrying
- Alchemy: mutation mechanic moved off to a separate development path, independent of the level-up process
- Alchemy specialization is based more on potions
- Improvements available for the horse and boat
- These aspects are still in development
- One idea: players could access their long-term storage stash from their horse as well as from inns
- Team knows about frustrating inventory management in Witcher 2
- Crafting still important for enhancing Geralt’s capabilities
- Can customize crafted items
- Some components are can be substituted for similar things
- Ex: monster scales instead of leather in a piece of armor
- This affects the properties of the final item
- Can find unique components as part of monster hunts or questlines
- Combine these with special recipes to make artifacts of immense power
- Each armor piece has a unique appearance
- Armor has improved presentation and new cloth simulation
- Can visit a barber to change Geralt’s hairstyle

I, for one, am very excited by this; massive fan of The Witcher series even if until recently I never had a computer able to handle it well.

 

[Rod_Lightning]

I hope they ask Vader to compose another Witcher song. That song was badass.

Also, cool beans. I've played a great deal of Witcher 1 (sadly my computer died many many hours in the game and I gave up on it). I'd like to play Witcher 2 before this one though.